Who doesn’t love bread fried in bacon fat?
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In the Southwest we have Navajo Fry Bread, which seems similar to British Fried Bread.
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It’s no longer popular in the UK. It used to be an integral part of a cooked breakfast but it now rare that you see it - most places now use American style hash browns instead.
By the by, I started keeping notes of all my meals out, including breakfasts, in 2008. Since then I’ve only got two mentions of fried bread coming with a “Full English” breakfast. That was a greasy spoon cafe in 2009 and a supermarket cafe in 2019.
Me. I don’t. When I lived in the UK there was a pub near the office that did all-day full cooked breakfasts. I had two colleagues who took me there when I started and then kept taking me there (I had no objection!) when they realized they could count on getting my fried bread. Good times…
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That saddens me.
Me too.
It’s along the same lines that mean you don’t see tomatoes on breakfast plates as often as in the past. Replaced by tinned baked beans . Presumably easier/cheaper. It’s actually fine with me - I like beans and have never liked grilled tomato at breakfast.
Ditto. And on those grilled tomatoes on the breakfast plate, I’m a huge fan.
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Just made some last week. The mother of all tacos. A month ago I crossed Navajo County, AZ and stopped at a little place in Kayenta. We all got Navajo tacos save for my son. Cheeseburger in Navajo fry bread. He loved it.
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Not really, at least in my experience. Navajo Fry bread is (raw) dough fried in oil, similar to an elephant ear or sopapilla. British fried bread is (baked) sliced bread, fried in oil or bacon grease until crispy. Or at least that’s the only type I’ve had - perhaps @Harters can comment as to whether there are other kinds.
To answer @ipsedixit 's original question - I love anything fried in bacon fat, including British fried bread. However, it’s not always my first choice for a breakfast carb because I find it too rich to enjoy with fatty breakfast meats. If I am just eating simple scrambled eggs, though - bring it on.
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Never had it. Like a crouton?
That’s the only type there is. It is usually from a pre-sliced white loaf but, on the occasions you encounter it in a posher place, it’s probably cut from a whole loaf.
By the by, we’ve only encountered fry-bread once on our travels to the States. That was in 2013 in Cherokee, NC. My notes record it was unpleasant in itself and came topped with a bland and boring chilli and tasteless cheese. Mrs H, who had ordered it, reckoned it was the revenge of the Cherokee people for wrongs done to them by both American and British settlers.
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Not really.
Fried bread, as the name suggests, is fried.
Croutons, while they can be fried, are usually baked.
More importantly croutons are generally (though not always) seasoned.
Fried bread is not.
The seasoning, if you can call it that, for fried bread is usually the bacon fat it is fried in.
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Bummer. It can be quite delicious, but the fry bread needs to be fried properly (too cold oil will make it greasy and leaden), and of course the toppings need to be flavorful (and spicy, IMO).
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Problem is that relies on the muck that manufacturers churn out and call bread. The Chorleywood Process has ruined UK bread machine for the majority of people they would not know a slice of real bread from a shack around the face with a wet kipper.
A secondary problem is that most of the bacon sold (in the UK at least) releases not bacon fat but the excess water used to bulk it out and make the labelled weight.
I remember my late father produced great fried bread (using bread from the last local artisan baker) by frying it in lard not bacon fat.
When on holiday staying in B&Bs or hotels there is always some pastiche of fried bread served up as part of a full English breakfast.
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I’m in. What’s the Chorleywood method?
Absolute rubbish. It was created to allow manufacturers to cut costs to the bone sacrificing taste, flavour and texture.
The only good thing about it is that the research centre responsible for this travesty closed down and the buildings now used as a care home for elderly people particularly those with dementia.
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It is pretty much like Toast in Texture, so soft in the center crisp on the outside. It is done in the Skillet with some of the Fat left from the other ingredients (Sausage, Bacon, Black Pudding, White Pudding, Haggis etc…).
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Lack of exposure?
It doesn’t involve cheese or ranch dressing?
In particular, it allowed manufacturers to use lower graded British wheat, rather than the significantly more expensive imported North American wheat on which the UK had relied on for many decades. It also meant it was much quicker to produce a loaf.
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But that does not justify the lack of taste, flavour, and texture that results from the CWP.
